Tag Archives: History

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors: (7) Worst: Caracalla

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty

 

(7) WORST: CARACALLA –
SEVERAN DYNASTY
(211 – 217 AD: 6 YEARS 2 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

 

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry – the Incredible Hulk of the Roman Empire, not in superhuman strength but in violent temper, smashing his way from one end of the empire to another.

One of two entries from the terrible Severan dynasty in my top ten worst emperors, Lucius Septimus Bassianus – or as he is known to history, Caracalla, his nickname from the cloak he wore while cosplaying as a soldier. What is it with two of the worst Roman emperors being nicknamed for their clothing (and military cosplay clothing at that)…?

Technically he reigned as co-emperor with his father (and founder of the Severan dynasty) Septimus Severus from 198 AD and then with his younger brother Geta as well from 209 AD. His father died in February 211 AD and his brother died in December 211 – the latter with a little help from Caracalla. Or a lot of help, as Caracalla orchestrated Geta’s murder by the Praetorian Guard – worse in the guise that Caracalla had their mother Julia Domna arrange a peace meeting with his brother in her apartments, thus depriving Geta of his bodyguards, and then had him murdered in her arms.

Low blow, bro – although their mother got over it, obviously reconciling herself with the thought that one live imperial son in the hand was better than a dead one in damnation memoria (which Caracalla of course had the Senate decree for Geta). Indeed, she essentially ran Caracalla’s imperial administration for him, as he found it too boring.

What he didn’t find boring was lavishing attention on the military and playing as a soldier in the provinces. And by lavishing attention, I mean spending money and debasing the currency to do it. The denarius? Caracalla smash! He instituted another coin for Rome’s currency but debased that too.

That is, when he was taking time off from his purges and massacres, including his infamous purge of Geta’s supporters and his equally infamous massacre of the inhabitants of Alexandria because he was insulted by a play about him in that city.

One seemingly positive achievement was that he did decree all free men (with certain exceptions) as Roman citizens, thereafter puzzling historians as to his motives, although it is usually attributed to extending the tax base.

In fairness, he also did a reasonable job at shoring up the empire against Germanic tribes along the Rhine and Danube. On the other hand, the latter part of his reign was spent entirely away from Rome, starting with an ongoing tour of the provinces, reputed to bankrupt provincial governments with his extravagant expenses. It was this that prompted Edward Gibbon to write that “every province was by turn the scene of his rapine and cruelty”. That’s metaphorical rapine I presume, although you never know with the bad Roman emperors.

He then obsessively began playing as Alexander the Great, to the point of starting a war with Persia’s Parthian Empire by a Red Wedding style of massacre (although the accounts vary), which may have indirectly played a part in the rise of the Sassanids that followed as a rod for the empire’s back – and definitely played a part in a knife for his own, as he was assassinated during his war with Parthia.

“Caracalla has had a reputation as being among the worst of Roman emperors, a perception that survives even into modern works…historian David Magie describes Caracalla, in the book Roman Rule in Asia Minor, as brutal and tyrannical and points towards psychopathy as an explanation for his behaviour”.

 

MAXIMUS:

 

Britannicus Maximus mooching off his father’s campaign but he got Germannicus Maximus on his own

 

DEIFIED:

 

Dude should have had a damnatio memoriae but got deified instead. I mean, they’d deify anyone those days.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Yeah – this is one of a number of emperors that Dovahhatty has his tongue firmly in his parody cheek by depicting them as the chads they proclaimed themselves to be. Indeed, most of them are in my top ten worst emperors, so I’m going to keep a running score of them from here on. Parody chads – Caracalla. Check.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (FAIL TIER)
EMPIRE DEBASER

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (7) Best: Probus

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

 

(7) BEST: PROBUS –
NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY
(276 – 283 AD: 6 YEARS 3 MONTHS)

 

Usually overlooked among Roman emperors, Probus deserves to be hailed with Aurelian as the saviors of the empire in the Crisis of the Third Century – one of “the soldier emperors who saved Rome”. Although Aurelian got the empire through the worst of the third century, the empire may well still have fallen apart under the onslaught of new invasions and revolts without an emperor such as Probus at the helm.

Probus was one of so-called Illyrian emperors, hailing from the region of Illyricum or other Danubian provinces as the core of the Roman army, that renewed the Roman empire, most immediately in its third century crisis, but which also were its best emperors for the next three centuries. The Illyrian emperors usually rose to prominence and served with distinction as military commanders in succession – indeed, Probus had reconquered Egypt from Zenobia in Aurelian’s war against the breakaway Palmyrene Empire – and it was said that he had “fought with success on almost every frontier of the empire” before he rose to emperor.

The Crisis of the Third Century still loomed large in other internal revolts, as well as barbarian invasions of the empire and the enduring threat of the Sassanid Persians.

It was particularly for the latter that Probus had been appointed supreme commander of the east by his imperial predecessor Tacitus and was in camp in Asia Minor when his troops rallied for him as emperor when Tacitus died. After first defeating his rival claimant Florianus (the half-brother of his predecessor), he campaigned west to defeat the Goths along the Danube.

He and his generals then campaigned in Gaul to defeat the barbarians that had invaded the empire – Alemanni, Franks, Burgundians and Lugii (reputedly 400,000 of them and the entire tribe of Lugii were wiped out during his campaigns) – and claiming the titles of Germanicus Maximus and Gothicus Maximus. After defeating the barbarians who had invaded Gaul, he then crossed the Rhine to campaign successfully against the barbarians in their homelands and restore the fortifications of the defensive line constructed by Hadrian between the Rhine and the Danube.

Probus wasn’t done yet – he fought the Vandals at the Danube (including defending his home province of Illyria), his generals defeated the desert nomad Blemmyes in Egypt, and he defeated usurpers or revolts in the west including, as usual, Britain.

In the meantime, he had also sought to cultivate and extend the army’s discipline, above all by his principle of never allowing soldiers to be idle and engaging them in civic works to reconstruct the empire when not in combat (planting vineyards, repairing bridges or canals, draining marshes and so on). He did something similar by a tribute of manpower from vanquished barbarian tribes, establishing the precedent of settling barbarians within the empire as auxiliaries on a large scale, albeit a precedent that was not as successful under subsequent emperors.

It was reputed that he even lamented the necessity of a standing army or soldiers, anticipating a future in which Rome’s enemies had been defeated so that its army would not be necessary – but first he had to deal with the Sassanids and was preparing for an eastern campaign against them when he was assassinated, with some sources attributing it to disgruntled soldiers rebelling against their orders for civic works or overhearing his laments.

“Probus was an active and successful general as well as a conscientious administrator, and in his reign of six years he secured prosperity for the inner provinces while withstanding repeated invasions of barbarian tribes on almost every sector of the frontier. After repelling the foreign enemies of the empire, Probus was forced to handle several internal revolts but demonstrated leniency and moderation to the vanquished wherever possible.”

He was also diligent in respecting the authority of the Senate and hailed by Gibbon as “the last of the benevolent constitutional emperors of Rome” – with the Senate never again playing an active role in the management of the empire under his successors.

 

MAXIMUS

 

Gothicus Maximus and Germanics Maximus – he celebrated a triumph in Rome in 281.

 

DEIFICATION OR DAMNATION

 

Deified!

 

EMPIRE-SAVER

 

The Illyrians saved the empire!

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Damn right – with Probus as chad in the prelude to the Tetrarchy

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (8) Worst: Constantine II

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVII: Imperial Wrath

 

 

(8) WORST: CONSTANTINE II –

CONSTANTINIAN DYNASTY

(337 – 340: 2 YEARS 7 MONTHS)

 

A whiny little toad, who tried to usurp his younger brother and got pawned instead.

Letting his father’s name down, Constantine II spent his time whining that he didn’t get more than the western third of empire he got in 337 AD as one of three brothers because he was the eldest.

He was of course fine with his brother Constantius – the one who actually got things done – doing the dirty work of whittling down their father’s male relatives in what is known as the massacre of the princes so the three brothers could inherit their father’s empire. He just thought he was entitled to more of it. Constans got the central third, including Italy, while Constantius got the eastern third – you know, the third fighting the Persian Sassanids.

So Constantine bullied his younger brother and ward Constans as an easy target. And yes – I said ward, because Constantius had designated Constantine II the guardian of Constans until Constans came of age.

Constantine II successfully bullied Constans into giving him part of Africa but squabbled over Constans retaining Carthage, refused to relinquish his guardianship when Constans turned eighteen, and just tried to usurp Constans instead, marching into Italy with his troops in 340 AD.

Only to be ambushed and killed by the forces of Constans – not even by Constans or his main forces, but by a detachment of troops Constans sent ahead of himself and his main forces while taking care of imperial business in Dacia, fighting actual enemies of Rome.

Congratulations, Constantine II – you played yourself.

Constans then got his brother’s third of the empire, consisting of Hispania, Gaul and Britain

 

MAXIMUS

 

Yeah, right.

 

DEIFICATION OR DAMNATION

 

No damnation or deification as far as I’m aware

 

EMPIRE DEBASER

 

I’ve gone with empire debaser for him – it can’t be said that he broke or debauched the empire, but I think it can be said he debased it. His father had fought to unify the empire and eliminate usurpers – only for Constantine II and his brothers to divide it, compounded by him trying to usurp his brother’s realm – preempting the successful usurpation of Constans by Magnentius a decade later.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Yeah – Dovahhatty does it right, ranking him as a virgin, as in my feature image.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (FAIL TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention) (20) Hollywood & Playboy

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(20) HOLLYWOOD & PLAYBOY

 

If the Capitol, Pentagon, or White House represents the American empire’s Augustus, then Hollywood is its Virgil. Or some might say, its Caligula or Nero. Or some even more wild voices might say, a decadent American empire all of itself, at odds with the Republic – Hollywood Babylon.

Or the point where the frontier became film, from the American West to the western, that archetype of American film which one might argue that all American films still are at heart. Or where the West became the road, where all roads lead to the road movie.

We might be at the wildest of my wild tier or bottom of my empire iceberg here but aren’t we just talking about the apex of American cultural imperialism or “soft power”? Well yes, but that doesn’t mean Hollywood can’t rank special mention as empire.

Of course, my preceding special mention for Joshua Norton might outrank this one as the wildest tier or bottom of my empire iceberg but perhaps that he made his imperial proclamation from San Francisco demonstrates a consistent Californian or West Coast exuberance when it comes to American empire – or empires.

I’m joking and I’m serious. After all, if a religious military order like the Teutonic Knights or even more so a company like the East India Company can each rank special mention in my top empires, why not the American entertainment industry for which Hollywood is a geographical focus and metonym? And outside Washington DC, the only other metonym of American influence or power as evocative as Hollywood is Wall Street (except perhaps for Silicon Valley, also on the West Coast and indeed in California).

Hollywood may not have the military and political control over territory as the Teutonic Knights, although it has often been the Homer of the Pentagon’s Iliad or overseas odysseys – but there does seem to be a certain metaphorical parallel between crusading military orders carving out their empire in the converted eastern frontier of Europe with American studios doing the same in their settled western frontier.

The better comparison might be with the East India Company – perhaps not quite to the extent of the latter’s monopoly in world trade (or the latter’s military force), but at least a similar dominance of the world entertainment industry and popular culture. Hollywood was fortunate in that its rise overlapped that of the United States to global dominance in the twentieth century.

That prompts a segue to the second part of this entry – Playboy as empire.

Yes – again I’m joking and serious. In jest, I strive to reserve my final special mention for some kinky entry where the subject permits – and I believe this fulfills my obligation.

In seriousness, like Hollywood – with which there is considerable overlap, at least in its magazine interviews, celebrity pictorial features, and guest list at the iconic Playboy Mansion – Playboy is a metonym for the American adult entertainment industry in general.

Some might argue that is essentially synonymous with Hollywood, particularly those who describe the latter as Hollywood Babylon – it even shared much the same Californian geographical focus, most famously San Fernando Valley. I’ve read that American predominance in the world adult entertainment industry is – or at least was – even more pronounced than that of Hollywood for the general entertainment industry, such that it might even rank (or have ranked) as the American East India Company in terms of monopoly and share of world trade. I don’t know how true or accurate that is but if so, it should be a source of patriotic pride – USA! USA! USA!

Setting aside that metonym for the adult entertainment industry in general, there’s something to be said for the corporate holdings of Playboy itself as an empire. Of course, you could say that of many companies or corporations, drawing parallels with empires in financial, economic and even cultural spheres. Indeed, McDonalds or Coca Cola would perhaps be the iconic archetypes, particularly as the symbolic vanguards of American influence or power, the contemporary equivalent of gunboat diplomacy.

But there’s something to be said of the American adult entertainment industry in general and Playboy in particular, as the global vanguard or dare I say it, missionary position, of American sexual liberalism – and libertinism, the American Sexual Revolution.

Also, I can’t help but identify parallels with the rise and fall of the Playboy magazine with the Roman empire, with Hugh Hefner as its founding Augustus – and its Tiberius, albeit in the Mansion rather than Capri and with bunnies instead of minnows.

Of course, that may be because I was raised on Playboy as much as Rome in my youth – literally, if covertly on my part, as my father had the entire collection of Playboy magazines, until my mother descended on them like the Vandals.

That last seems something of a microcosm for the fall of Playboy as print magazine (and clubs) – echoing the fall of the western empire in that, a little like the eastern empire, the Playboy corporate brand and holdings have survived the fall of the magazine, not least as a cultural icon. I believe that much like the Holy Roman Empire and various states claiming succession from the Roman Empire, some international versions of the magazine are still ongoing in print.

Dare I jest that Playboy will always be my Holy Roman Empire? Or like the Last of the Romans, I still hold to the Playboy lifestyle and Playboy philosophy – nay, the Playboy religion, my bacchae and golden ass, my holy grail of adventurous bed and questing beast, so much so I made pilgrimage to the Playboy Mansion when I visited Los Angeles.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (8) Best: Diocletian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Diocletian’s Tetrarchy

 

(8) BEST: DIOCLETIAN –

NON-DYNASTIC / TETRARCHY

(284 – 305 AD: 20 YEARS 5 MONTHS 11 DAYS)

 

Dominus of the Dominate – Diocletian ended the Crisis of the Third Century and stabilized the empire, instituting what has been called the Dominate, as opposed to the Principate founded by Augustus, via the system of government for which he is best known, the Tetrarchy.

“It is perhaps Diocletian’s greatest achievement that he reigned twenty-one years and then abdicated voluntarily and spent the remaining years of his life in peaceful retirement.”

That was a rare achievement for emperors in the third and fourth century – few emperors died naturally with most dying violently. He was also the first emperor to abdicate voluntarily to peaceful retirement, from which he could not be coaxed back, growing cabbages that have become the stuff of legend.

“If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn’t dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed.”

That people sought to coax him back as emperor suggests something of a mixed quality to his reign that was summed up by the Youtuber Spectrum (who also ranked him in eighth place) – “the dude who tried to fix all the issues of the empire and to be honest kind of failed”.

His pet Tetrarchy failed when he wasn’t in it to hold the hands of his co-emperors – and of course it also inherently involved the concept of the division of the empire that would ultimately become permanent between its eastern and western halves. As Adrian Goldswothy observed, it meant fewer civil wars in a more muted form of the crisis of the third century, rather than a true return to the lost comparative stability of the first and second centuries.

The less said about his economic policies such as his edicts for price controls the better, as they were often an abject failure, resulting in higher tax burdens, inflation, reduced social mobility and effectively pre-empting feudalism. Diocletian also institutionalized the Roman equivalent of the military-industrial complex and bureaucratic state, although some historians have considered the burden of the latter to be overstated.

And of course, there was his Great Persecution of Christianity, which would ultimately prove to be ineffective and counter-productive, as well as seeing him maligned by subsequent Christian emperors after this persecution had been replaced by tolerance and the favoritism.

Even the Dominate which he instituted moved the style of government, particularly to modern democratic eyes, away from the more senatorial and collegiate style of the Principate, to one that was more authoritarian, autocratic, bureaucratic, and despotic.

However, it was one that served the needs of the empire at the time better than the Principate and continued to do so with modifications until at least into the seventh century.

Above all, it kept the borders of the empire secure under Diocletian and thereafter for almost a century – with Diocletian, who had risen to the throne from humble origins through a distinguished military career, campaigning successfully against Germanic tribes and Sarmatians at the Danube (taking the victory title of Sarmaticus Maximus), a rebellion and usurper in Egypt, and the Sassanids in Persia.

 

MAXIMUS

 

O boy – Germanicus Maximus, Sarmaticus Maximus, Persicus Maximus, Britannicus Maximus (suppressing the Carausian Revolt or so-called Britannic Empire), Carpicus Maximus, Armenicus Maximus, Medicus Maximus, and Adiabenicus Maximus. Half of those come from campaigns against the Sassanid Persians – arguably the empire’s best campaigns against the Sassanids, reversing the defeats of the Crisis and securing the empire’s best terms of victory against the Sassanids that would endure for half a century.

 

DEIFIED AND DAMNED

 

Well, it was the Dominate after all – divine honors came with the territory. He even called himself Jovius.

However, Christianity has a long memory of its persecutions – there was no formal damnatio memoriae but he was removed from monuments and his memory was diminished under Constantine, both to magnify Constantine himself and because of Constantine’s Christianity.

 

EMPIRE MAKER

 

Yes, yes – technically there was only one empire maker as such, but Diocletian qualifies for his Tetrarchy and the Dominate, effectively instituting a new Roman empire from the Crisis of the Third Century.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Dovahhatty does Diocletian right as a chad in the video named for the Tetrarchy – and as the emperor holding the whole thing together despite the deficiencies of his fellow tetrarchs.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (9) Worst: Arcadius

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

 

(9) WORST: ARCADIUS –
THEODOSIAN DYNASTY: EASTERN EMPIRE
(395 – 408 AD: 13 YEARS 3 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

And now we come to the worst imperial dynasty, the Theodosian dynasty – the dynasty virtually synonymous with the fall of the Roman empire, and effectively the Roman counterpart to the barbarians at the gates. Or dare I say it, Rome’s own home-grown barbarians in the gates?

Theodosius was the last emperor to (briefly) rule the empire as a whole, institutionalizing its imperial division by inflicting his two terrible sons on it, Honorius and Arcadius – one on each of its western and eastern halves. The western empire did worse with the son it got but it’s as if the empire was trying hard to churn out the worst possible imperial clones to ensure its fall. As we’ll see, the western empire did that twice over with Valentinian III as a virtual clone of Honorius but it’s like the eastern empire also got their Honorius clone with Arcadius.

Arcadius was much like his brother in the western empire, weak and useless, puppeted by subordinates but luckier in that the eastern empire was more robust. He was also fortunate to have capable administrators, notably the prefect Anthemius. I’m also prepared to give Arcadius slightly more credit than his brother because he seems to have had major health issues which incapacitated him and led to an early death, sparing history more of his reign.

Like his brother, Arcadius also caused major issues for the empire’s supreme military commander Stilicho as the latter attempted to shore up the eastern half of the empire against its Germanic barbarian invaders as he did the western half. Those Germanic barbarian invaders were the Visigoths led by Alaric, rampaging in the Balkans (before rampaging in Italy itself). Arcadius stymied Stilicho’s attempts to defend the eastern empire, albeit as always under the influence of subordinates – before incredibly declaring Stilicho as public enemy and appointing Alaric, the leader of the Goths sacking the eastern empire, as magister militum or military commander to defend that same empire.

At least Arcadius didn’t actively betray and execute Stilicho, as opposed to his brother as western emperor. However, the damage was done, albeit ultimately more to the western empire and Rome itself, with this and other actions widening the ever more gaping division between the western and eastern empires.

 

EMPIRE-BREAKER

 

Well, obviously – but less so than others in his dynasty, notably his brother in the western empire.

 

MAXIMUS / DEIFICATION

 

No need to bother with imperial victory titles or deification – nothing to see here, although in fairness I think the institutionalization of Christianity had done away with deification by then.

 

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

The first depiction by Dovahhatty of an emperor as virgin in this top ten but by no means the last – and appropriately presented as more pitifully pathetic than others. The virgin part is of course from the metaphorical virgin-chad meme – he was succeeded by his son Theodosius II.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*
F-TIER (WORST TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (9) Best: Valentinian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XXVII: Imperial Wrath

 

(9) BEST: VALENTINIAN –
VALENTINIAN DYNASTY: WESTERN EMPIRE
(364 – 375 AD: 11 YEARS 8 MONTHS 23 DAYS)

 

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides – by barbarians. And he will strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger. And they will know his name is…Valentinian

Apologies to Tarantino, although I think Valentinian would have dug Tarantino’s vibe. Certainly I think if any characteristic described Valentinian, it was furious anger, albeit that of the righteous man.

I mean, he literally died of anger – from a stroke yelling at envoys from Germanic tribes for not sticking to peace treaties, although I prefer the Dovahhatty version where Valentinian had his stroke choking them out in pure rage.

It’s not a bad way to go – and who doesn’t secretly yearn for something similar, going out in a blaze of glory at work, yelling at someone who richly deserves it as I rage into, not against, the dying of the light. No? Just me, then?

Valentinian was the last great western emperor, “due to the successful nature of his reign and the rapid decline of the empire after his death” – certainly the last worthy of the title of the Great as he is also known as Valentinian the Great (although I understand that was by a convention that did not so much connote greatness as a term that also effectively translated as the first of his name).

Hell, I’ll say he was the last great emperor in either half of the empire until after 476 AD. Yes – I’m looking at you, Theodosius the so-called Great. I’ll deal with him later but I tend to agree with Dovahhatty who has Theodosius muse to himself “I’m busy thinking how to be horrible at everything and yet still be remembered as ‘great'”. Okay – I don’t quite go that far but you won’t be seeing him on the best or great side of the ledger. Just don’t confuse him with his father and Valentinian’s top general, Theodosius the Elder or ‘Count’ Theodosius (as his military title loosely translates).

And yes – I haven’t forgotten about Majorian. It’s just that Valentinian was the last emperor to campaign beyond the Rhine or indeed secure the borders of the empire against barbarians, as he skilfully and successfully defended against Germanic invasions – to keep the barbarians at the gates

After Valentinian’s death, the barbarians were inside the gates – “the calls are coming from inside the house!”. The Romans weren’t fighting them beyond the borders or even at the borders, but inside the borders, where they were to stay.

After Valentian, it’s depressing that the mark of a good emperor – such as Majorian – was one who fought and defeated the barbarians inside the empire. And that was depressingly rare, literally only a couple of emperors. Even emperors fighting at all were rare, as that was increasingly done by their military leaders – increasingly drawn from the barbarians themselves – who ruled the empire in all but name, although in fairness quite a few of them also fought and defeated barbarians inside the empire, including my favorites Stilicho and Aetius.

Back to Valentinian, it was like the fourth century trying to replay all the greatest hits of the crisis of the third century but Valentinian was having none of it and kicked it all back to the curb – Germanic tribes in Gaul and Germania, the ‘Great Conspiracy’ of rebellion and invaders in Britain, rebellion and usurpers in Africa, and Germanic tribes at the Danube.

You don’t rack up those victory names for nothing. Okay, occasionally emperors did, but not Valentinian – I’ve seen listed for him Germanicus Maximus, Alamanicus Maximus (with the Alamanni as perhaps his favorite punching bag), Francicus Maximus (for the Franks) and Gothicus Maximus.

Sadly, his brother Valens – whom Valentian made his eastern co-emperor – did not quite have the same mettle or military prowess, which is what led to those barbarians inside the gates after a little battle of which you might have heard, the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD.

His sons had even less. So much for the so-called Valentinian dynasty, which saw the empire crumble, albeit not as much as the – shudder – Theodosian dynasty. The only Valentianian dynasty was Valentinian.

Valentinian occasionally has the reputation – among some modern historians as well as contemporaries – as a brute, but he founded schools, as well as providing state-funded orphanages, medical services in Rome’s poorest districts and penalties for infanticide. He was also capable in administration, particularly financial administration – he improved tax collection (including relief for the poor) and was frugal in spending. And unlike his brother Valens, he actually upheld religious tolerance (apart from slapping the odd pagan).

Okay, there’s the story about his two pet bears which he used to execute people, but I’m not sure I believe that. There’s also the story of Valentinian and his wife swinging with Justina, the hottest woman in the Roman Empire, such that he made a law to have Justina as his second wife (and mother of his son Valentinian II). That’s probably as much gossip as the story about the bears but it makes me respect him even more.

 

MAXIMUS:

 

As I noted before – Germanicus Maximus, Alamanicus Maximus, Francicus Maximus and Gothicus Maximus.

 

DEIFIED:

 

Despite being Christian, the empire still retained its classical paganism and its deification of emperors – so he was deified

 

EMPIRE SAVER:

 

One of the last, if not the last, in the classical Roman empire.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Dovahhatty of course has him as a chad – as depicted in my feature image, one of my favorite scenes from the Unbiased History of Rome series – and indeed hails him as the last great western emperor.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (10) Worst: Petronius Maximus

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XXIX: Fall of Rome

 

 

(10) WORST: PETRONIUS MAXIMUS –

NON-DYNASTIC / LAST WESTERN ROMAN EMPERORS

(455 AD: 2 MONTHS 14 DAYS)

 

If Majorian was the zenith of the non-dynastic last western Roman emperors after the end of the Theodosian dynasty in 455 AD, Petronius Maximus was the absolute nadir – and hence matching wildcard tenth place entry in my top ten worst Roman emperors.

I mean, while the other non-dynastic last western Roman emperors apart from Majorian were generally useless or puppets, Petronius Maximus was actively destructive, with a cowardly low rat cunning quality to boot.

Admittedly, his most destructive acts were prior to becoming emperor – because they were how he ascended to the imperial throne in the first place. They were two-fold – firstly duping his predecessor Valentinian III into assassinating the man who was effectively the one holding the empire together, Flavius Aetius, and secondly then orchestrating the assassination of Valentinian III, adding treacherous insult to injury by enlisting two loyal followers of Aetius among his predecessor’s bodyguard to do it.

All that evil wasn’t enough for him to ascend the throne – there were other contenders to the throne, including Marjorian (and one anticipates history would have turned out better with Majorian becoming emperor then instead). So Petronius Maximus, a wealthy Senator and aristocrat, bribed his way through the Senate and imperial officials to the throne.

He then sought to consolidate his position as emperor by marrying Licinia, the widow of his imperial predecessor – the fiend! – but then effectively sowed the seeds of his downfall by also marrying her daughter Eudocia to his son. That involved cancelling her betrothal to the son of the Vandal king Gaeseric in north Africa – who promptly set about preparations for their infamous sack of Rome.

However, Petronius Maximus wasn’t done with being a rat. With the Vandals sailing for Italy and the citizens of Rome in panic or flight, he abandoned any defence of the city and sought to organise his escape instead.

Fortunately, karma kicked in and he was abandoned by his bodyguard and entourage to fend for himself, when he was set upon by an angry mob (or soldier – accounts vary) and killed, with his mutilated corpse thrown into the Tiber.

Good riddance but sadly his downfall was also that of Rome in its second sack, as the Vandals of course still sacked the city – and still got the girl, as Gaeseric took Eudocia back to Africa with him (along with her mother and sister as well as many other citizens as slaves). Well at least someone got a happy ending, compared to being married to Petronius or his son.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (FAIL TIER)

 

MAXIMUS:

 

Well except for his ill-deserved name, although I suppose you could say Petronius Maximus did defeat Petronius Maximus.

 

DAMNED:

 

No formal damnatio memoriae – probably because the Senate and Romans were too busy with Rome being sacked – but someone should have damned him. I’ll take him being killed by the mob and tossed in the Tiber as an informal damnatio memoriae.

 

EMPIRE BREAKER

 

O yes – but sadly not the biggest empire breaker in this top ten.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Frankly, Dovahhatty ranks him too high as a wojak.

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (10) Best: Majorian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIX: Fall of Rome

 

(10) BEST: MAJORIAN –

NON-DYNASTIC / LAST WESTERN ROMAN EMPERORS

(457 – 461 AD: 4 YEARS 11 MONTHS 1 DAY)

 

The last, best hope for the western Roman Empire, but alas it was not to be – although it was enough for him to be one of the historical figures labeled as the “Last of the Romans”.

There were probably emperors who might well have outranked Majorian for a place in my top ten but I just couldn’t resist Majorian for my usual wildcard entry in tenth place. What can I say? I’m a romantic for people fighting against the odds.

I also have a soft spot for stories of so-called lost legions, those left still standing or holding the line beyond the high tide mark of the empire – and Majorian was virtually a lost legion all to himself.

When I first found out about Majorian, it was a revelation. I had assumed that by the time of his reign, the western Roman empire was essentially dead on its feet, still standing only as it was propped up by the German barbarian tribes that had all but conquered it. After all, by 457 AD, Rome had been sacked twice by Visigoths and Vandals respectively, narrowly avoiding a third sack by Attila the Hun. Its emperors had all seemed to be one feeble emperor after another, useless or puppets (or both), as well as less than two decades away from the last such emperor being deposed altogether.

Majorian was having none of that. Seemingly cut from the same cloth as Aurelian two centuries earlier, he strove to pull the empire out of its spiral of doom, defeating all of Rome’s enemies he fought even in that twilight of the western empire.

He had of course come from a distinguished military career, starting and serving under none other than that other legendary last of the Romans, Flavius Aetius, particularly distinguishing himself fighting against the Franks. That saw him rise to the position of magister militum in the western empire, along with Ricimer, a Romanised German general who was increasingly the maker and breaker of emperors in the western empire.

Upon rising to the imperial throne, he defeated another attack by the Vandals on Italy, before setting upon the reconquest of former imperial territory in Gaul and Hispania, defeating the unruly barbarian allies or ‘foederati’ who had overrun that territory and confining them to their areas of settlement – the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Suebi.

The jewel in the crown of his reconquest was to be the Vandal kingdom, which had conquered the Roman province of Africa – province of Rome’s old enemy Carthage and whose wealth and grain had formerly been the lifeblood of the western Roman empire – for its own, definitely not as subordinate foederati like other barbarian tribes in the empire.

Had he engaged them on the battlefield, one might anticipate that he would have defeated them as he had consistently defeated all his other adversaries (including the Vandals themselves in Italy) – but alas it was not to be. He did not get to engage them in the battlefield at all, as the fleet he had painstakingly built was scattered or destroyed, usually attributed to treachery paid by the Vandals.

Defeat as they say is an orphan – and Majorian soon found himself orphaned by history, betrayed and assassinated by his former colleague Ricimer.

In fairness, it is not clear whether Majorian could have decisively reversed or stalled the fall of the western empire, although surely his position would have been much improved by the reconquest of Africa.

It is tempting to imagine counterfactuals as to what he could have achieved if he had been able reconquer Africa. Or if the Leonid dynasty in the eastern empire, which pretty much sat around being useless until after 476 AD when emperors such as Zeno and Anastasius ascended the throne, had decided to lend its fleet to the campaign by Majorian rather doing so on its own a few years later for its chosen emperor Anthemius, resulting in disastrous defeat and near bankruptcy for itself. One can imagine that in those circumstances the western Roman empire may well have endured, perhaps long enough to when the eastern empire under Justinian lent itself in earnest to reclaiming or restoring its western half.

However, the precariousness of Majorian’s position and achievements are perhaps demonstrated by the extent to which his fleet could be exposed to treachery paid by the Vandals, or he himself could be deposed and assassinated by Ricimer – not to mention how quickly his reconquests unravelled afterwards.

Still, I tend to share the opinion of Edward Gibbon, who wrote that Majorian “presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species”.

 

MAXIMUS

 

I’m not sure the western Roman empire had victory titles or triumphs at that late stage, but he damn well deserved them for his victories over the Franks and Alamanni prior to his accession to the throne, and over the Vandals (in Italy), Visigoths, Burgundians and Suebi as emperor.

 

DEIFIED

 

With Christianity as the official religion of the empire, the Romans had ceased deifying emperors, but perhaps literary deification as the Last of the Romans

 

EMPIRE SAVER

 

Sadly, almost but not quite. At least saved it for a few more years.

 

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Dovahhatty rightly ranks him as a chad, even including that Gibbon quote.

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors

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A collage of Youtuber Dovahhatty’s “title cards” for the two classifications of the Roman imperial government – the Principate (from Unbiased History of Rome: Augustus) and the Dominate (from Unbiased History of Rome: The Tetrarchy)

 

 

Dilettantes think about the Roman Empire. True Roman connoisseurs rank the Roman emperors.

Of course, any such ranking is subjective opinion, although there does appear to be some broad consensus (or consensuses?) about the good or better Roman emperors. You don’t get such common labels as “the five good emperors” – which I understand to have originated with Machiavelli and been advanced by Gibbon – without some consensus.

Or the phrase used by the Roman Senate itself in the inauguration of later Roman emperors, invoking two emperors as the paragons of Roman emperors. Don’t be surprised if the emperors from either the five good emperors or the Senate’s inauguration phrase feature prominently in my top ten.

And of course, by definition I am only ranking my top ten Roman emperors in my top ten, but I rank the balance of Roman emperors in my special mentions. And because you can’t rank the best Roman emperors without also ranking the worst Roman emperors as well – primarily because the worst Roman emperors are legendary in their cruelty and depravity – I also rank my ten worst Roman emperors with the balance similarly in special mentions.

As for any matter of subjective opinion, my criteria for ranking my top emperors are somewhat loose, but primarily might be stated to be their effectiveness in managing or maintaining the empire, which may give rise to some moral dissonance as to what we might look for in leaders of modern democratic states today, given that the lifeblood of empire was conquest or war – “they make a desert and call it peace”.

Indeed, one gets the impression that the Romans themselves measured greatness in their emperors by two criteria – construction (of monuments or civic improvements) and expansion, with the latter changing to the defense of the empire once it had expanded to its peak,

Conversely, my criteria for the ranking of the worst emperors might be stated to be their ineffectiveness, often characterized by imperial defeats, and usually combined with that aforementioned legendary cruelty and depravity.

As for the ground rules for whom I rank as emperors, my primary rule is that I am only ranking Roman emperors until 476 AD, when the last western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed – with the exception I do not include eastern emperor Zeno, who reigned briefly in 474-475 AD before returning for a longer second reign from 476 onwards (commencing just before Romulus Augustulus was deposed).

That’s really just a matter of brevity and also that I am more familiar with the ‘classical’ Roman emperors. I know that is short-changing the eastern Roman emperors, particularly as they had a millennium of imperial history after that and probably had more basic competence or effectiveness on average, or at least not the same depths of legendary cruelty and depravity as their worst counterparts in the classical empire.

On that note, I acknowledge my hubris from my armchair of hindsight in judging people, the least of which has ruled far more than anything I ever have (as in anything at all) – although I’d like to think that I’d have done a better job than the worst of them. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d be partying it up to legendary depravity as well.

My ground rule still leaves the issue of which emperors to rank prior to 476, given the list of claimants to that title – a list that as historian Adrian Goldsworthy points out is likely never to be complete or exhaustive, given the paucity of the contemporary historical record and that we are still finding ‘imperial’ coins minted in the name of claimants, previously unknown or ‘new’ to us.

So I’ve gone by Wikipedia’s list of Roman emperors, although I reserved their entries noted to be of more dubious legitimacy for my honorable (or dishonorable) mentions. I have not noted when emperors ruled the whole empire – as the majority of them did – but have noted when emperors ruled either the eastern or western empire after its division (prior to 476).

 

EMPIRE MAKER / SAVIOR / BASER OR EMPIRE BREAKER / DEBASER / DEBAUCHER

 

In addition to my usual star and tier-rankings (which, given that I’m also ranking the worst emperors, go all the way down to 1 star and F-tier rankings), I also have my own particular (and hence subjective) rankings for those (good) emperors that made or saved the empire (or strengthened its base) – or the (bad) emperors that broke, debased or debauched it. Debased the empire that is, not the currency – all emperors did the latter, with a few exceptions or perhaps even just the one exception.

 

MAXIMUS

 

I’ll also note victory titles awarded to or claimed by Roman emperors (setting aside of course the title of emperor or imperator itself) for victories in battle against adversaries or opponents, which I’ll extend to include literal triumphs (for their triumphal processions in Rome).

 

DEIFIED OR DAMNED

 

I’ll note those emperors who were deified after their deaths (I’ll allow this to include sainted) or damned – that is the subject of a damnatio memoriae or cancelled posthumously to use the modern term. Of course, deification became a little like the Roman currency in the later empire (until Christianity effectively abolished the practice) – so routine that it became debased.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Finally, because I have used Youtuber Dovahhatty’s Unbiased History of Rome animated video series as the source of images to depict each emperor, I’ll rank how well Dovahhatty did in his depiction of them.  His Unbiased History of Rome videos are probably my single biggest influence for Roman history – and certainly on Youtube.

While he does not actually rank the emperors as a whole, he does rank them individually by meme cartoon figures as being (good) chads or (bad) virgins, with the occasional (good or bad) wojaks. Of course, his tongue is firmly in his parody cheek, such as when he depicts some of the worst Roman emperors as the chads they proclaimed themselves to be.